#Bill de Blasio’s pathetic surrenders to NYC unions

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On Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a deal to delay classroom openings to Sept. 21.
Erik Thomas/NY Post

Mayor Bill de Blasio just folded like a cheap beach chair — twice in two days, flinching first on his vow to lay off 22,000 city workers, then on his promise to open schools on Sept. 10.

For weeks, the mayor stuck by his deadline, despite threats and fierce criticism from labor groups: “Unions will . . . say things sometimes in a very dramatic fashion,” he said. But “the mission is to take care of our kids.” That drew rare praise from us — and, no doubt, thousands of parents eager to have their kids back in class.

But, with the United Federation of Teachers on the verge of a strike vote, and the usually quiet principals’ union also firing harsh shots, Hizzoner blinked — announcing a deal with the unions to delay classroom openings to Sept. 21.

UFT boss Mike Mulgrew, who’d been huffing about “a major war,” then called the negotiations “an example of how to get things done.” Yeah — for him.

The shift left parents who’d planned for their kids to begin at least hybrid learning next week scrambling. It also left everyone wondering why, with months of relatively few COVID infections, the mayor couldn’t have worked out a deal earlier — if he was going to cave in anyway in the end.

Meanwhile, many schools the mayor doesn’t run are opening on time — with some Catholic schools even managing full-time in-person instruction.

De Blasio’s schools flip follows by a day his retreat on sending pink slips to 22,000 workers. He’ll now give lawmakers more time to let him borrow billions.

Layoffs are always difficult, but it would still leave the city with thousands more workers than when de Blasio took office. Private-sector workers, meanwhile, have seen both layoffs and pay cuts amid the pandemic.

Borrowing should be a last resort. As the Citizens Budget Commission’s Maria Doulis suggests, the city could dodge new debt or layoffs by just getting its workers to kick in a few bucks a month for health-care costs.

But this mayor is constitutionally unable to stand up to the municipal unions to protect the larger public. A profile in courage, he’s not.